SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS: No quit in Iraq War veteran who fights back from near-fatal motorcycle crash

Erik Potter

Thursday

Dec 24, 2009 at 12:01 AMDec 24, 2009 at 10:09 AM

Blood infection, arm and shoulder amputation, kidney failure, brain injury and severe blood loss threw a curve in the Bridgewater State student’s plans, but his determination to succeed would not be denied.

After surviving a 15-month tour in the Army, including more than a year in Iraq, Greg Reynolds thought he’d left near-death experiences behind.

Reynolds, a 19-year-old Dighton native and an Army transport operator, saw the insurgency grow after arriving in Iraq in April 2003. He saw the children on the street who would be friendly with soldiers, then set roadside bombs when they weren’t looking.

He saw the nearly invisible wires placed underneath random overpasses, right at turret height, that decapitated American gunners riding in Humvees.

He lived through an ambush of his convoy, with him and his partner pinned down in the “kill zone” and the “zing, zing” of bullets flying past his head.

But he was able to survive, and in September 2004, he returned home, unscratched.

Reynolds wasted no time starting his new life. Recruited by the Newport Police Department, he decided to become a cop. The job promised to let him use the skills he’d developed in the Army and provide that adrenaline kick he’d grown accustomed to in combat.

That fall he enrolled at Bristol Community College in Fall River. Two years later he transferred to Bridgewater State College, majoring in criminal justice.

By summer 2008, he was all set to finish his senior year and start the next phase in his life.

LIFE-CHANGING SECONDS

On June 22, 2008, Reynolds was on his way back home to Dighton after enjoying a morning at Colt State Park in Bristol, R.I., with two buddies.

About 10:30 a.m., a 75-year-old driver turned left in front of Reynolds’ yellow and black Suzuki TL1000 motorcycle onto Route 136 in Swansea.

Reynolds had three seconds to react, slowing from 43 mph to 25 mph and steering toward the rear of the sedan.

Had he been driving faster, he probably would have died. Had he hit the center of the car, he probably would have died.

As it was, the impact flung him from his bike. His left arm and shoulder slammed into the vehicle. He suffered broken bones in his neck and a traumatic brain injury that would leave him in a coma. Doctors had to amputate his arm, shoulder, collarbone and scapula.

The ambulance report notes that his heart was “grossly visible.” A severed artery nearly drained him of blood. What blood remained was infected by pesticides that had washed onto the roadway.

While in a coma, his kidneys shut down in reaction to a contrast agent injected into him for a CAT scan.

Not counting the kidney failure and blood infection, doctors gave him an 18 percent chance of living.

More than two weeks in, doctors had to drill into his skull to relieve swelling in his brain. They told Reynolds’ mother that unless he showed some sign of movement within 48 hours that he would be a vegetable.

She stayed by his side in the ICU, willing him to recovery.

“Greg, dig deep,” she told him. “You need to make a move or else it’s all over.”

It came down to the last six hours before she saw him, every so slightly, twitch his right foot.

From that point on, it’s been forward progress.

ROAD TO RECOVERY

In all, he was in a coma for six weeks and in the trauma center for 7 1/2 weeks before being transferred to the veterans hospital in West Roxbury for treatment and therapy.

And what was originally supposed to be one year in the hospital proved to be only four months. While the process of recovery seems quick in retrospect, the day-by-day pace of it was depressing.

Reynolds had dislocated a bone in his hand during the crash that left him with severe nerve damage. Until that healed, he had no sensation in some of his fingers. He had to relearn how to walk, talk, eat and dress. Learning to do that with a missing arm and unfeeling fingers was frustrating.

“You wouldn’t think how hard it is to put on a pair of socks with one hand,” he said. “It’s pretty hard, especially if your hand is messed up.”

But Reynolds is a goal-setter. His first goal was to be able to get out of bed, then walk down the hall, then zip up jeans, then button a shirt.

“I have this drive in me. I can’t be held down,” he said.

By October he was back home, and by January, after missing only one semester, he wanted to start back at Bridgewater State College.

Before the accident, Reynolds had started training for a bodybuilding competition. At 5-foot-7, he’d built himself up to a cut 175 pounds. He took a take-charge personality into the classroom, sitting in the front, asking lots of questions.

Now he felt like a different person. He had lost weight and was self-conscious about the way he looked. He wasn’t sure he was ready to face school quite yet.

At a veterans sports clinic that winter, however, an instructor with two prosthetic arms retaught him how to ski. By the end of the day, he was sliding down black diamond slopes. If he could do that, he told himself, he could manage going back to class.

THIRD CHANCE AT LIFE

A year ago, Reynolds wanted to kill himself. His dreams, his arm and nearly his life had been taken from him, and the person who had done it — a fellow veteran — hadn’t so much as apologized.

He’s in the process of getting a prosthetic limb — a tough challenge since there’s little left to attach it to — and he’s regained basically all of his physical ability. He hasn’t fully recovered from his brain injury, which caused mental deficiencies, though you wouldn’t know it from talking to him.

Reynolds no longer wants to be a cop, but he hasn’t decided what his new plan is yet. He’s thinking about becoming a personal trainer. He’s thinking about being a coach at a VA sports clinic. He’s thinking about writing a book.

But he’s not quitting.

His motto in life is, “Go big or go home.”

And he’s not going home.

Erik Potter can be reached at epotter@enterprisenews.com.

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